


Farewell And Adieu

by SecretWaterist



Category: Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 16:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6086479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretWaterist/pseuds/SecretWaterist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last of my four works about the characters of the Swallows and Amazons novels as adults, it does help if you have read the previous three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Farewell And Adieu

FAREWELL AND ADIEU

 

 

 

Not by the author of Swallows and Amazons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

 

                  PROLOGUE                                                             

     I            SUMMER 2005                                                          

    II            WINTER 1930-31                                                        

   III            WAS IT 1929 OR 1930                                                    

   IV            SUMMER 1931                                                          

    V            WINTER 1931-32                                                        

   VI            EASTER 1932                                                             

  VII            SUMMER 1932                                                          

 VIII            SUMMER 1932                                                          

   IX            SUMMER 1932                                                          

     X           SUMMER 1932                                                          

   XI            WINTER 1932-33                                                        

  XII            SUMMER 1933                                                          

 XIII            SUMMER 1933                                                          

 XIV            SUMMER 1934                                                          

  XV            1939-1945                                                                

 XVI            SUMMER 2005                                                          

XVII            SUMMER 2005                                                          

AUTHOR’S NOTE

 

After 1933 we know nothing of the Swallows, Amazons, Ds and their compatriots. In ‘Different Territory’ I recounted the gathering of some of them in 1947, and what changes took place in their lives. With ‘Vanished and Discovered’ I told of what paths their lives took in the nineteen sixties, in ‘Hope Springs Eternal’ I recounted their time in the nineteen eighties and the childhood friendships were still maintained. This book completes their story.

 

A resident of Secret Water.

_2016_

 

TO

 

AGAIN J FOR MORE THAN EVER MAKING

MY LIFE WORTH LIVING.

 

 

PROLOUGE

 

SUMMER 2005

 

_I was born and grew up in the small town on the lakeshore, apart from leaving home to go away to college when I left school. After college I came home and since then I have always lived in the town. Like most people with strong connections to the lake most of my family knew about the group of children, they’d all heard of their adventures and often saw them on the lake and occasionally even in the town. As I was growing up various adults would be pointed out to me by my older relatives, and I’d be told they were one of them, sometimes even names were mentioned, so I had a vague idea of who some of them were._

_Now I’m retired I just do the odd secretarial job for anyone living around the lake that needs it. I don’t earn a great deal from it but the money doesn’t really matter, it keeps me busy and I get to chat to different people. So if someone wants me to do some work and they live across the lake or down towards the south I often go there sailing my dinghy, sometimes when the wind is in the right direction it is quicker than driving._

_If you sail down the length of the lake northwards, leaving the largest island behind, you will pass the town on the eastern shore, and then if you carry on further down the western side you will reach the mouth of the river that runs in to the lake. There is an expanse of lawn that reaches down to the river mouth and then the lake from the back of the large house, Beckfoot, the house that was once the home of the Blackett family. At one of the first floor windows, most days, you will see an elderly woman looking across the lake to the hills beyond. It seems sometimes she is there every day. Occasionally she is alone, but most mornings you will see another woman sitting near her seemingly listening intently. That other woman is me._

_When I arrive Susan is usually waiting for me in her own room upstairs, the window is the one with a view across the lawn, the lake and the hills. We work nearly all morning, well not so much work, she talks and I take down all she says in my notebook. I type up the shorthand when I get home in the afternoon ready for the next time I see her. I’ve no idea what she will do with the typed pages; I just leave the sheets in a folder on her table near the window._

_Sometimes she tells me that she is rambling, sometimes that she is being boring and apologises, but I’m fascinated. I’d heard of the families and about some of the things they got up to, my parents and others told me about them, so I always wanted to know more about them. How long it will all take I don’t know._

 

CHAPTER I

 

SUMMER 2005

 

They have taken on a secretary for me, Jane. Well, she’s not really my secretary but I wanted someone who can take down what I talk about in shorthand and then type it all out for me. It all started because I thought it was time I wrote down what happened to us all, our adventures I suppose.

 

There have been attempts to do this by a few others over the years, one in particular, but of the ones I’ve read they always seem to miss some things out, or much worse only put one side about some of the things that happened. I actually thought about writing it, but I couldn’t do it myself, not these days, so I wanted someone I could talk to, dictate it all to them and they would type it for me. Jane’s a very nice young woman, well she’s young compared to me as I think she’s retired, she’s very kind and she tolerates me going off the point, but really seems interested in what happened to us all. Jane often sails across the lake from Rio; except of course she doesn’t call it that just as she doesn’t know the island was for us Wild Cat.

 

We work nearly every morning in my room, it’s easier for me at the start of the day than going downstairs, I leave that for the afternoons so I’m ready for dinner. Jane comes in most days, if I’m up to it, and I talk to her telling her everything I remember about our adventures, not so much what I remember but what I felt about it at the time and what I think of it now. Then she brings me the typed transcript the next time she comes in, all the pages are over there in a folder in the bookcase. When I have read through them then I put them in the folder.

 

It's only me living here now.

 

I'm the last one.

 

Soon I know it will be my turn, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next year. How strange I should be last one, of course there are Peggy and John's children but of us original friends it's just me. How many years now? Coming up to eighty? We all know things will come to end for us all one day, but to be left to the last is a rather strange feeling, I was sure I would be gone long ago, but here I am, I’m still at Beckfoot, the lake still beyond the lawn. I can see both from the window, unchanged from all those years ago.

 

As we planned back in the nineteen-eighties there are people here to care for me: a nurse, cook and the young woman who arranges and pays for everything from the trust. When I've gone? It's up to me as the last one, but I don't know yet, I should change my will, I must, though I can only suggest, the trust will do what it thinks best.

 

Often time passes slowly, but I spend my days reading, listening to the radio, not many people visit, none of us made many friends outside the group or at work, and so now, in a way, I pay the price for that. Nobody thinks about when their life will likely come to an end.

 

I read in one of the weekend’s serious newspapers a reappraisal of Dorothea's novels; they’ve all just been republished with newly designed covers and introductions by current famous writers who found her an influence on their work. It was ten years ago Dot passed. So it turned out she could really write though I didn’t read any of them until I came here, she had talent and none of us really took her work seriously, she was always so kind and thoughtful. But we were all shocked when it came out about her and Timothy, though Titty already knew. None of us are in her books, no hidden portraits as they call them, I read them all last year, interesting in some ways but if they had been by anyone else I wouldn’t have bothered, not really my kind of thing, but it helps to pass the time.

 

When I couldn’t manage mother’s house on my own after Roger had died I sold it and put the money in to the trust and came to live here, it was the best thing to do. Of course, Peggy was still here then so we had two or three years together, just the two of us, a bit like old times, we always got on well. Then…, well, so now it is just me.

 

John of course was the eldest, and being a boy he assumed it put him in charge yet thankfully mother and father saw it differently, I was in charge of all them. Trouble is I was thought sensible, practical and reliable. Only in one thing was John seen as being ahead of me, sailing. Father had taught us all at, I seem to remember, Falmouth, mother learnt as a child in Australia and so she was nearly always there to correct our mistakes, she was never critical she just pointed out how we should be doing things.

 

So both mother and father expected me to look after all the others, but then mother had always put me in charge of train journeys, I don’t know why, she was quite capable herself though she did have a nurse for Bridget. Why she needed one I never knew, perhaps father thought she should because he was someone of rank in the Navy, she hadn’t grown up like that in Australia. When I was much older I realised of course that after having Bridget she was tired, it was her fifth child! With me being the eldest girl I suppose it was expected that I would take a share of the childcare, all it did was to keep me away from having children, the others used to say I was married to my career, I was, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

 

The trouble with father being in the Navy was that he was always abroad somewhere or travelling to or from somewhere else. It seemed we were always on our way either to some new posting, or nearby, to meet him and sometimes to spend a holiday without him, hence we ended up here at the lake one year.

 

CHAPTER II

 

WAS IT 1929 OR 1930?

 

That first summer was so long ago, so long I’m not sure whether it was nineteen-twenty-nine or nineteen-thirty, it was probably nineteen-thirty, Titty was always the one who kept a diary but she lost some of those during the war. We were all staying at Holly Howe and on that first day we discovered _Swallow_ in the boathouse, we then saw the island in the lake and we asked mother if we could go there and camp. She said we had to write to father. While we were waiting to sail to the island, mother said we could not go until father had answered our letters, we watched the lake and the island every day. We had all written to him asking if we were allowed to go, back then we all called him ‘daddy’, but that faded out once Bridget got older and it amuses me now when I think of it.

 

Looking back now I am sure mother arranged it all before father even replied to us, I always suspected so, she must have done and I think she must have also met and discussed it with Mrs Blackett who I don't think told Nancy or Peggy, or even Captain Flint. Perhaps like the Amazon’s she was annoyed with him too for neglecting his nieces, leaving her alone with them as her husband had died years before.

 

Captain Flint? He was Mrs Blacekett’s brother James, Uncle Jim to Nancy and Peggy. I think the Blacketts must have owned the island, I only think so because but it seems there is no paperwork or deeds or anything that actually proves it, I’ve asked the girl that runs the trust and she can’t find out anything. Despite that the family keep leaving it in their wills to whoever is next and now it is assumed it is owned by the trust, well, the trust thinks it is.

 

When Father replied to our letters he sent a telegram, that was an odd message, that phrase about duffers, all those words must have cost him a lot, perhaps the Navy paid? I never understood why didn't he just say 'yes'? I suppose he was really telling us all to be careful, and to make us think about not being careless, Roger didn't understand it of course, but then he was too young. Bridget, she was still a baby and was staying with mother and the nurse. She visits me every week or so, but she only ever came with us to the Essex Backwaters so she doesn't really understand what happened between us all and what it meant to us. Odd to think of her retired now, all those years teaching overseas, perhaps she was making up for not being part of it all with us.

 

Once father had said we could go we got everything ready and the next day set sail, and made camp on the island. After a few days the Amazons attacked us, we had seen them sailing on the lake one day before when we were waiting. During the attack Nancy shot an arrow in to the camp and she nearly hit John, I told her years ago but I don't think she ever believed me. I’m sure Peggy realised at the time and how dangerous it could have been, but then of the two of them she was always more cautious, she had to spend too much time keeping Nancy in check, until of course Daisy came along.

 

We all learnt so much that summer, before getting to the island it all seemed so simple to go camping when we planned it at home and tried out the tents in the garden. Mother had taught me how to cook on a campfire, and importantly how to light one, good job she did as we would have been cold and starved!

 

The worst thing was, and that was expected as I was the responsible one, I had to sort out the latrine. I made sure that John chose the best position well away from the camp and that Roger would help him dig it, I sent Titty off to collect plenty of suitable leaves, and told everyone that they had to replace any they used and keep things clean and tidy. The hardest thing in the end was constantly reminding Roger to wash his hands before he did anything else! The last thing I wanted was anyone being ill; there was enough to do without that.

 

Sailing was easier than we anticipated, though we’d learnt with father and mother John was so nervous when we got on the lake, he so wanted to do everything right and not disappoint father. He didn’t of course, well not father, mother was not pleased about the night sailing when we were at war with the Amazons. Why he ever told her about it I couldn’t really understand, but if he hadn’t I suppose Mrs Blackett may have told her when she heard what Nancy and Peggy had been up to that night. Then mother could have guessed where we were when she visited the island and found Titty on her own, I think she was more annoyed about us leaving her but Titty didn’t care, always the independent one, always thinking, lost in her thoughts.

 

I thought Captain Flint was a beast, an utter beast, until we got to know him. It was the way he treated John when he went to warn him about thieves and he wouldn’t listen, all he did was call him a liar, John never lied to anyone, ever. Captain Flint was horrible to send the policeman to the island to question us after the robbery. Luckily for John, Nancy sorted the constable out, sent him away with a flea in his ear, it made me realise what sort of person Nancy was that day. She never changed, always ready to defy convention, always ready to defend people, nearly always against the flow, but almost always right! I do so miss her.

 

But I miss them all, and it was so sad about Daisy. I couldn’t believe it about her and Nancy at first when I was told, I’d met such women in the Navy, and I have to admit it used to give me the shudders, I know it’s unkind to think that way, but that’s how I felt back then. They were such a devoted couple, really in love and made for each other so it wasn’t so surprising when Daisy took her own life after Nancy died, she just filled her coat pockets with rocks and walked in to the lake the morning of the day after Nancy’s funeral. I wondered what Mrs Blackett thought of them in the beginning, she always welcomed Daisy just as she did all of us, but never said anything to any of us about them as a couple. I did ask Peggy a few years back, seems Nancy didn’t talk to her either, she just accepted Daisy as part of the family.

 

Those holidays were hard work sometimes, with father away from home so much mother always expected lots of help from me, John was all right, but I had to look after the younger ones, and Roger was always difficult. Not that he was ever a bad boy, just mischievous, and then I had to look after him after mother died, the usual expectation of the oldest daughter, he never recovered from how he was treated as a prisoner of war. Having to help like that when they were children was one of the reasons why I joined the navy as soon as war broke out, I knew John and Roger would, but I wasn’t going to sit around at home, I wanted action, I was not allowed to fight of course but I made up for that. John never realised what I achieved, he thought he had done so well, a commander, but by the end of the war I knew far more about what went on than he ever did. Some of the decisions I had to make, he never knew about, we signed the Official Secrets Act and kept it.

 

Then father was killed in action, I missed him, of course we all did, but I know he would have been impressed by what I did, and understood, mother never really did, but then she had to deal with Roger.

 

At the end of that first holiday it came out all right, Titty found the stolen trunk from the houseboat with the book manuscript inside and Captain Flint was grateful for the rest of his life, too grateful sometimes I thought. Titty had it easy in the war, even though she stayed in London. I still can’t believe she dowsed in an official capacity or actually made money from it, but she claimed right up to the end that she did.

 

Captain Flint gave Titty his parrot as a reward, she’d always wanted one, that was fine, it lived in its cage and she collected the feathers for Nancy and Peggy to use on their arrows. But because Roger helped in the finding the trunk Captain Flint bought him a monkey, which he named Gibber.

 

I hated that monkey, it was dirty and kept breaking things and was just a nuisance, I was so glad when mother persuaded Roger to give it to a zoo. I think he was too, the idea of it was fun but looking after it was another matter and too often he thought I would deal with the wretched thing.

 

CHAPTER III

 

WINTER 1930-31

 

In the winter that followed that first adventure we all met up again, we were in Norfolk and stayed on a wherry hired by Captain Flint. Father was abroad somewhere once again missing yet another Christmas, if he’d been at home then mother would not have let us go, and we wouldn’t have wanted to go. I think she stayed at a hotel, at the time I never gave it a thought, we were all just excited about being with Nancy and Peggy again. I’ve always assumed Mrs Blackett was at the hotel too, I’m sure they went to a hotel, as when I cleared out the house there was a brochure and notepaper from back then for the Royal Hotel Yarmouth, no wonder she was happy to let us go off with Captain Flint. Where did Bridget go? Do you know I’ve never asked her, I must next time she visits, though she may not know, I forget she was still a baby then.

 

It was during that stay on the wherry that Titty one evening began to make up the story of Peter Duck, and once she got it started we all joined in and added our own bits. We all found it very entertaining on those cold winter nights in the warmth and cosiness of the wherry cabin, but for Titty it was more than that, for her Peter Duck almost became real!

 

When I was older I read about children having imaginary friends, but for Titty Peter Duck was more than that he was in Titty’s mind someone real, someone who could be trusted and relied upon. The story we created on the wherry was of how Captain Flint had bought an ocean going schooner, named _Wild Cat_ after the island and we helped Peter Duck search for treasure on a Caribbean island where he’d seen it buried when he was a ships boy. Captain Flint even joined in; we all added our parts to the story, some of it quite exciting and some even violent. If what we invented had really happened we’d have all been so frightened, well, I would have been, being shot at by real pirates.

 

The thing was most of us had read ‘Treasure Island’, and the rest of us at least knew the story, and so we all borrowed a lot of it. We all had great fun every night but all too soon our time on the wherry was over. But when we returned to the lake the following summer, for Titty, Peter Duck was still with us. Strangely, I think in some ways that was when Titty began to grow up and began to get a more adult view of the world through this imaginary character.

 

CHAPTER IV

 

SUMMER 1931

 

So that next summer, after the winter spent together with the others on the wherry, we returned to the lake and Holly Howe with mother and Bridget, we had something of a shock to begin with, there was no sign of the Amazons. No messages, nothing.

 

After our preparations at Holly Howe and we were ready we sailed off in _Swallow_ to Wild Cat Island, we thought that maybe Nancy and Peggy would be there waiting for us, already camped, but when we arrived there was no sign of them. As we passed Captain Flint’s houseboat on the way we thought he may be there and fire his cannon in welcome, but there was nobody there, no elephant flag flying, it was all locked up and covered with tarpaulins, deserted and uninhabited, as if it was still winter.

 

We imagined they would turn up the next day so unbothered we set up camp on the island on our own, but when we did get messages from them then things got worse. We heard about their Great Aunt Maria. Mrs Blackett’s aunt was staying at Beckfoot, though she was a visitor she ruled everything and so Peggy and Nancy were not allowed to go sailing and camping, they had to behave like conventionally brought up little girls which definitely did not include wasting their time ‘playing’ at pirates! Surprisingly Captain Flint was even summoned to the house and forbidden to live on his houseboat, and we were shocked to find out that he obeyed for reasons we did not know or understand until much later. The GA, as they called her, sounded horrid, the Amazons had to wear proper summer dresses appropriate for little girls all the time and keep them clean and with matching gloves when they went outside. They were expected to play the piano, learn poetry, always be on time for all their meals, including afternoon tea, and had to make polite conversation about school and lessons!

 

So on our own on the island we decided to make the best of things and explored the southern end of the lake, all the time hoping the Amazons would soon join us.

 

Then things got worse still. On our second voyage to Horseshoe Cove John, as we sailed in to the bay, took a chance coming about and hit a rock holing the _Swallow_ and she sank almost at once. Even all these years later I can’t believe he did that, he must of known what would happen the way he was sailing! Strange though how we all reacted that day, everyone did the right thing, nobody panicked. Luckily it was on a day when the Amazons had escaped the GA and turned up just before it happened, Peggy helped me build a fire and get things dry while Nancy helped John get _Swallow_ up from the lake bottom on to the shore. He dived to the bottom and got the ballast out of _Swallow_ by attaching it to a rope for Nancy to haul to the shore. Once they had finished Captain Flint then arrived, and he managed to repair _Swallow_ with some old tarpaulin, this was enough for John to get her to the boat builders in Rio, they then went on to Holly Howe. Captain Flint told mother what had happened so she didn’t hear about it directly from John. I was always glad of that, if John had told her it would have been as bad as all that business about night sailing.

 

Later on, thankfully after we had set up a camp with the help of the Amazons and Captain Flint, mother visited to make sure we were all fine. Mother was so understanding about it, she agreed that we could camp at Horseshoe Cove, everybody thought we’d have to go back to Holly Howe and stay there, even Nancy and Peggy were surprised when she let us stay.

 

We were settled in our new camp, but had no boat. But then things changed once again, after a few days we moved our camp from the cove to the valley further away from the lake with a cave that Titty and Roger had found: Swallowdale.

 

The cave was so well hidden in the valley and it was big enough to store everything from the camp inside it. Titty named it Peter Duck’s cave and spoke about it as if he actually lived there. But as with everything else at the lake others had been there before, only this time it was just Captain Flint when he was our age, thankfully Nancy and Peggy knew nothing about it, he promised not to tell them. Thanks to this secret we were able to defeat the Amazon’s surprise attack when they came across the moors from Beckfoot, we saw them approach, with their silly red caps they were so easy to spot, we struck camp and hid everything in the cave. Unfortunately, though they had got away that day the Great Aunt was making things much worse for them, especially Captain Flint and Mrs Blackett. Worse still, I then had to deal with Titty.

 

Oh dear, Titty. She meant well, I’m sure she did, but it was a silly thing to do.

 

The Amazons had told us how the Great Aunt was so horrible she had made Mrs Blackett cry, they had heard it all when they were supposed to be asleep, but they were listening to them talking from the landing. The GA was complaining to Mrs Blackett how badly she had brought up Ruth (as she would call Nancy) and Peggy, and how disappointed her husband, Bob, would have been in his daughters if he had been alive. I was shocked, appalled that an adult, and a relative, could talk about somebody else’s children in such a way, but Titty was even angrier.

 

Titty was upset and outraged. Nobody would treat Mother like that and Titty felt it was just so horrible of the GA that she had to do something. It was silly of her. I don’t really know where she got the idea from, but I always supposed she must have read it somewhere in a book about magic and witchcraft.

 

So Titty, later that day when the Amazons had gone and she was alone in Swallowdale, made an effigy of the GA from candle wax and stuck pins in it, then as she did so it slipped from her hands and fell in to the fire. We’d all just got back to the camp after it happened and I found her distraught. I sent Roger away and John and I calmed her down and tried to convince her nothing would happen as such things were all nonsense. But she was so sure the GA had been harmed.

 

Well, of course nothing happened but it was all made worse as the Amazons couldn’t get away from Beckfoot for a day or two, so Titty was sure the reason why they couldn’t was that the GA was dead or at least seriously ill.

 

It was no surprise to me or John that she wasn’t, so on the day the GA left Beckfoot for home the Amazons joined us to climb Kanchenjunga which was a triumph for all of us. At the summit we got to hear about Nancy and Peggy’s father for the first time. But our celebration of the climb, and being able to at last go to the island together, were disrupted by Roger.

 

He once again managed to give us trouble and me more worries when he sprained his ankle. He and Titty had been allowed to go back to Swallowdale on foot and got lost in the fog instead of sailing back with the rest of us. The next day mother was on her way with Bridget to visit Swallowdale, and we had no idea where Roger and Titty were. Still, despite Roger spending a night with the charcoal burners and Titty being taken back to Swallowdale on the woodman’s wagon it all worked out all right in the end. I not only coped, but once again mother thought I was even more capable and responsible than she already did, I began to wonder if I would ever just have adventures like everyone else.

 

CHAPTER V

 

WINTER 1931-32

 

The following winter, once Christmas was over, we came to Holly Howe to stay but this time on our own, mother and Bridget had gone to Malta to visit father. I never really knew why we didn’t all go with her.

 

Nancy as usual had grand plans, she had decided as it was winter we would all be exploring what she called the ‘North Pole’ and much more, only there was no snow, well, to begin with. We all took our skates hoping the weather would soon change, not that any of us were any good at skating. But as always with Nancy, despite the lack of snow, she made the best of things and we built an ‘igloo’ of stones and corrugated iron sheets for a roof in the woods near Dixon’s farm and had it prepared for when the snow arrived, all of us were sure it would.

 

It was during that winter we met Dick and Dorothea, but we always called her Dot. They were staying at Dixon’s farm and one night in Holly Howe from our bedroom windows we saw a torch being flashed in to the sky. The next morning we went to see who it was, we thought they were in trouble from their signal but they had no idea about signalling at all. It turned out they had seen us on the lake a day or two before, Dick was interested in astronomy, that’s why they were out at night, but Dot was…, well Dot was a writer, or wanted to be. To everyone’s surprise Nancy immediately wanted them to join us on the planned expedition, not that we actually didn’t, though it would be more work for me as Dick was Titty and Roger’s age and Dot seemed to have no idea about domestic matters, and they had never sailed, they didn’t know Morse or semaphore, so what would they do? Nancy persuaded us, actually she just said they would join us and that was that.

 

After a few days of teaching Dot and Dick signalling and other things, at last the snow came, the igloo really became an igloo, it was cold enough so that the nearby tarn froze over, and it was so cold that the edge of the lake became ice.

 

Now it was frozen over we all went skating on the tarn and that’s when we found out what Dick and Dot could do, all of us were sitting at the edge struggling to put our skates on and as we did so they had already started skating round the tarn on their own and then as a pair with linked arms, making it look very easy. It turned out that near the University where their father taught there was an indoor rink and they had learnt and practiced there all during the summer and autumn.

 

But then a problem arrived, one that Nancy, only Nancy could make something good out of what happened. She got the mumps and was confined to her bed at Beckfoot, we were all at risk of catching it so Peggy was banished from the house and came to stay with us at Holly Howe and we were all quarantined, our school holidays were extended for a month by the doctor and Nancy was overjoyed!

 

Dick then surprised us all, even more than being able to skate, by rescuing one of the Dixon’s sheep that had become stuck on a crag in the snow, he managed to shuffle his way along the narrow ledge and got a rope around it so the others could haul it to safety, then we all got it on to a sledge and took it back to the farm. Mr Dixon and his shepherd Silas couldn’t believe what he’d done. The sheep had been rescued just in time, and so that night Mr Dixon and Silas built Dick and Dot a sledge to show their gratitude. So then we had two sledges, we could start the Polar expedition as Nancy had planned.

 

Somehow Nancy still organised things from Beckfoot, while waiting for her to recover, and at her suggestion, we started to use Captain Flint’s houseboat, she renamed it _Fram_ after Nansen’s ship. Whilst there we saw some ice yachts one day sailing from Rio, and John and Peggy managed to attach a sail to the Beckfoot sledge; we surprised Dick and Dot by sailing down the lake to the houseboat, but rather spoilt it by crashing! So now I had to become ship’s nurse tending to scratched knees and Peggy’s cut finger!

 

There was nearly more trouble when Captain Flint arrived back at the lake, not being able to stay at Beckfoot he arrived at the houseboat to find Dick and Dot, to him strangers, using the place as if their own. Thankfully he understood and was interested in all that we had done in preparation for the North Pole, he organised the expedition in the end. Then thanks to Nancy hoisting a flag at Beckfoot when she was better Dick and Dot set out before any of us had any idea, there was a terrible blizzard but she had told them that when there was a flag flying at Beckfoot it was time to make for the Pole. The trouble happened as when she told them it was before she got mumps, she then told the rest of us that when the flag was flying it was safe to visit and then we could make for the Pole the next day.

 

To prove themselves Dick and Dot, with Mr Dixon’s help, unbeknown to us, had added a sail to their sledge and made it across the frozen lake to the Pole, beating us all. By that time we were all out looking for them convinced they were in danger and eventually had to give up searching as it was too dark and dangerous. Nancy, of course, still at Beckfoot worked out where they had gone and followed on so she arrived second, and in typical Nancy fashion was thrilled despite causing a lot of worry for me and Mrs Blackett as by then Captain Flint had even alerted the police.

 

CHAPTER VI

 

EASTER 1932

 

Apart from the ice yacht made with their sledge in the winter, Dick and Dot had little idea about or any experience of sailing. That all changed later in the year when they went to Horning on the Norfolk Broads to stay with their mother’s tutor from her childhood, Mrs Barrable who lived on a yacht.

 

We heard all about it from them the next time we all met, how on their way to Horning by train they met the village Doctor’s son Tom, and through him the other members of their bird protection society that they called Coot Club.

 

It turned out that Dick and Dot some adventures with Tom and the others, which started when they all had to avoid some awful posh people on a week’s holiday on the Broads. These were terrible people who had hired one of those ghastly cabin cruisers and then moored it almost on top of a coot’s nest. To protect the coot and its eggs Tom cast the boat adrift, unfortunately the horrible people saw him as he made his escape in his homemade punt. This led to Tom and the others being pursued around the Broads, it ended when they had to rescue the horrible people who had managed to sink their cabin cruiser on Breydon Water, so it all ended well for the members of Coot Club.

 

Most importantly for Dick and Dot, and all of us, they had, by the end of their visit, at last learnt to sail.

 

I never said to anyone at the time, or since, that in the end they were better at sailing than we all were. They were well taught, for as well as Tom two other Coot Club members, the twin sisters Nell and Bess, known to everyone as Port and Starboard, gave them lessons. These two girls were experts as they sailed in proper yacht races with their father; they couldn't have had better teachers!

 

In that following summer after Easter Dick and Dot joined us all back at the lake, but as it turned out sailing was of little use.

 

CHAPTER VII

 

SUMMER 1932

 

Nancy, as always, had great plans for what we were going to do that summer. Plans that would make use of many of Dick's other talents that none of us had, and ones we did not know he had.

 

Captain Flint was once again neglecting his nieces, he had gone off to South America, prospecting for precious metals but was not having much luck. Because of this failure Nancy got an idea in her head. From what he had told her before he left she was convinced that there was gold in one of the old workings in the fells.

 

Her plan for us was to discover the gold, mine it and make an ingot before he came back, retribution for Captain Flint for once again abandoning them in the school holidays. She had found out that Dick had some basic knowledge of geology and chemistry so he would be able to deal with that side of things.

 

When we all arrived at the lake by train, John and I had done so a day or two before Roger and Titty as had Dick and Dot because of some difference in the start of our school holidays, we also found Nancy had got a new way of sending messages: homing pigeons. We didn't know Beckfoot even had a pigeon loft, but then we had never stayed there before. Well, as it turned out we didn't actually stay there, Mrs Blackett was having the whole house decorated so we were actually camping in the garden. But as ever, it wouldn’t stay this way, Nancy had other ideas!

 

For me, of course, it was once again more work; looking after more younger ones as Dick and Dot were there, though at least Dot being a bit older, like Titty, could be of some help. Roger was enough trouble, as always and on one occasion all of us having to search for him. It turned out that he had found the old working where the gold was, and despite ruining my carefully planned supper by being late back to camp that evening, I felt more forgiving towards him than usual. Nancy of course was pleased to be proved right and regarded him as a hero, a role he milked for all it was worth the next day when he took us to the old working.

 

I must sound harsh about him, especially after what happened to him during the war, but he was the youngest and was adventurous and never minded getting in to scrapes.

 

That was the holiday when we met Timothy, but at first we didn't know who he was. There was this man in the battered hat we just consider our rival, Nancy called him our enemy, I always thought that was too much and I was proved right in the end.

 

To make matters worse that year it was the hottest summer in the lakes anyone had ever known, so everyone was frightened of anyone lighting fires on the fells and so they tried to stop us camping as all the water sources had dried up, even Mrs Blackett was not very pleased. Nancy, of course, wouldn't be dissuaded by such worries.

 

Dick suggested that we find our own water as he had seen a man water divining at school, so Nancy was convinced if we could do that we could dig our own well. It was strange, we all had a go at doing it but out of all of us it was Titty who was the one that could dowse. To begin with it confused and upset her, and it was like the business of the effigy of the GA all over again.

 

Once she understood what was happening she tried on her own, and by dowsing discovered a spot in the fells where water would be, so we dug our own well and we could camp nearer the mine.

 

It made running the camp while we were mining easier but all of it was hard work. Nancy didn't mind as she was so determined to prove Captain Flint wrong and show him that he wasted his time going to South America. So she was willing to work at it, and encouraged all of us to do so.

 

We actually found copper in the mine which Captain Flint assured us was better than gold, but much more importantly thanks to the pigeons and a heroic bike ride by Dick we saved some of the fell farms from fire. Annoyingly, we were being blamed for it at first; but we were just children to most of them so only got reluctant thanks and apologies.

 

When Captain Flint returned, on the day of the fire in the fells, we found out the strange man was Timothy, the young man he had sent on ahead from South America and we had frightened him off!

 

At least Mrs Blackett, just as mother did, treated me like an adult, they entrusted me to look after all the others. I was flattered in a way but it was all hard work. In the end when I became an adult I suppose that's why I joined the navy and worked hard to be an officer. I wanted to be in charge and organise things, not worry about people washing themselves or what meal to cook next.

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

SUMMER 1932

 

Later in the summer we were all at Pin Mill in Suffolk, not just the four of us but Bridget and mother too. Father was to join us there as well, for once the Navy had honoured his leave and his plans were not interrupted. We were staying in Miss Powell’s cottage at Pin Mill and father was due to be there a few days later, arriving at Harwich on the ferry from Flushing in the Netherlands having travelled from China.

 

While we were waiting for him we went rowing one day on the estuary and made friends with a young man about to go to university, Jim Brading, who was sailing his uncle’s yacht _Goblin_. With mother’s permission we went on a short voyage with him, well, that was the plan. She agreed we could make just a short trip around the coast to Shotley, on to Harwich and Felixstowe then back to Pin Mill in time to meet father.

 

I think what occurred on that trip was actually one of the most frightening things that ever happened to me, even during the war nothing scared me as much as that night.

 

Late in the afternoon on the first day of the trip we were anchored off Felixstowe, and Jim went off in his dinghy to catch a bus to get some petrol for the _Goblin’s_ engine. It should have taken him half an hour at most, but he never returned. Of course we found out what happened to him much later, but at the time if that wasn’t bad enough a thick fog came down and the _Goblin_ began to drift on her anchor. John tried to anchor her again but then a storm brewed as darkness fell, he decided as we were drifting out to sea we should carry on because of the weather.

 

I so much wanted to turn back and pleaded with him, but in the weather conditions that night it would have been worse to do so. Then as the night went on and the storm worsened Titty and I were dreadfully seasick and John still sailed on towards Holland.

 

It was awful, at one point John had to climb along the length of the boat to do something to the rigging, I forget what now, and he nearly went overboard in the wind and rain, I thought he was going to drown. I’d never known Roger and Titty to be so quiet and so helpful and sensible. I was so frightened, I got the two youngsters to go to sleep and tried to as well but I was so ill. For what seemed hours we sailed on, battered by the waves and narrowly missing hitting a few others vessels.

 

By this time I’d forgiven John for sailing on realising we didn’t really have much choice, but in the night when suffering with seasickness I was so angry with him for not turning around and putting us all in danger. We’d also broken our promise to mother, and father was on his way home, she had no idea where we were or if we were safe. When I thought about the fuss John made about having to tell mother about night sailing and holing Swallow I couldn’t believe he couldn’t understand what danger we were in. But as is often the case things looked different in the light of morning. John was right and we had made it to Flushing in Holland.

 

As we sailed in to Flushing we passed a ferry about to leave for Harwich, and standing on the deck watching what was happening there was father. Somehow he managed to get off the ferry and found us on the quayside just as the Harbour Master came to check our paperwork. They couldn’t believe we’d sailed the _Goblin_ overnight from Harwich. As usual father organised things, sent telegrams, including one to mother reassuring her that we were all safe and would be returning the next day.

 

In all our childhood and teenage years it was the only real adventure we ever had, and the Amazons missed it.

 

For us four we all had a different view of things after that, I suppose in our own ways we all grew up, for John and me it was a huge step in to adulthood; we were no longer just children messing around in boats. We didn’t notice at the time, not even when we got back to Shotley. Mother was pleased to see us, and we found out how after a minor road accident when he got off the bus Jim ended up in hospital with concussion.

 

We really did begin to notice how we had changed until later that same summer.

 

CHAPTER IX

 

SUMMER 1932

 

What we didn’t know was that father had a plan for his return to England that he and mother had prepared, after a few days at Shotley we would sail down the coast to the Essex Backwaters, all of us, mother and Bridget too. We would explore the area, we had never done anything all together before, father was always at sea or somewhere abroad and mother was too busy bringing up Bridgie, but now she was old enough to be with us.

 

As usual, father’s plans were scuppered by the Navy. Before we had a chance to prepare to leave on our trip a telegram arrived at Miss Powell’s summoning him to his new posting at Shotley in a few days, much earlier than he expected. He and mother were angry but nothing could be done, or so we thought. After a day of much telephoning and telegramming they announced we were all to go on our own, even Bridget. We were going to be marooned on one of the Backwater islands and father would give us an almost blank map to fill in after our explorations.

 

So we were to go after all.

 

Once again I was expected to be the sensible one, taking charge of all the youngsters, which given that Roger and Titty had grown up a bit this wouldn’t have been too bad except in letting Bridget go I had much more to do. For goodness sake she was only four! Roger was at least seven when we first went to the island. So I now had to worry about her, not much of a rest after the nightmare voyage across the North Sea. I suppose that as John and I had coped so well with that journey mother and father were happy to let us go without them.

 

It was an odd start; father took us to the Backwaters on a borrowed yacht, quickly unloaded all our equipment and left us before he was caught by the tide. We had to make camp on a treeless island, we ended up with no way of telling the time, John’s watch was being mended and I had left our alarm clock at Miss Powell’s. So we relied on the sun and made what Roger named a ‘meal dial’, just a stick in the ground to cast a shadow.

 

The strangest thing now I look back was that we hadn’t heard from the Amazons before we left. So we got on with exploring ready for filling in father’s blank map. The second day we met Don, he was about our age and knew the area well and soon he was helping us. He had three friends, two boys and a girl, brothers and sisters: they called themselves the Eels because of all the mud at low tide. We all liked Don at once, and he told us all about the Eels who spent their holidays pretty much as we did at the Lake and Dick and Dot had on the Broads.

 

With Don’s help we explored a lot of the area, in doing so we almost forgot about the Amazons, but suddenly a day or so later without warning they arrived on the island; father had arranged it with Mrs Blackett and not told us as a surprise. We were pleased to see them but to begin with Don was embarrassed by these new arrivals, and wanted to leave us to it. We’d have none of it, Nancy in particular, but unbeknown to us all Don was heading in to problems.

 

The other Eels had got wind of us, and didn’t like the idea of others on their territory, they sent a message to Don telling him to get rid of us however he could not knowing that he had befriended these new arrivals.

 

As often happens with these things in the end it was resolved but without giving much stress and work for me. In trying to get rid of us the other Eels kidnapped Bridget from the camp when Titty was supposed to be looking after her. Titty was inking in the map as we had made it so far, concentrating so much she didn’t notice Bridget was no longer there. As it turned out Bridget didn’t mind at all and was pleased to be the centre of attention amongst the Eels rather than being the youngest and just a hanger-on of all of us.

 

So this was how we all met Daisy, the only female Eel. And of course, most importantly, looking back how Nancy met Daisy. We had no idea at the time what this would mean for them both, though years later they always said they knew something was happening between them. When we all went home afterwards Nancy and Daisy wrote to each other for years, apparently not really aware of what is was they shared.

 

After our voyage across the North Sea John and I had grown up in our ways and took father’s mapping seriously, so when Nancy arrived it was strange at first. She was the oldest of us all, but to us two she was behaving almost like a child. She and John almost fell out, because of her involvement with the Eels that almost meant that the mapping did not get finished, he was angry. But thanks to Titty and Roger, and Nancy and Peggy, it did get done on the last morning when mother and father were due to collect us. The four of them got back to camp, which we’d already struck and packed away on our own, with literally minutes to spare on the falling tide.

 

Father was pleased with what we’d done, and John was relieved we’d managed it. He made his peace with Nancy, but not for some time afterwards.

 

CHAPTER X

 

SUMMER 1932

 

During that summer while we were all mapping the Essex Backwaters Dick and Dot spent another holiday back in Norfolk with Mrs Barrable, their mother’s old tutor. We had letters from Dot but they only told us the whole story when we next all met up.

 

In Horning once again the two of them joined up with the Coot Club members, only when they arrived it turned out that Tom had been accused of casting off boats again. But this time it was lots of boats for just malicious reasons and, worse still, he was accused of stealing shackles from a boatyard. With Mrs Barrable and the Ds Tom went on a trip on her yacht to escape all the attention, but then more boats were cast off wherever they went, and eventually even the police became involved.

 

Returning to Horning, Dot decided they would have to become detectives and find out who was really casing off boats. In the end it was only her tenaciousness and the luck that Dick had been given a camera that they manage to prove Tom’s innocence. Turned out that the real culprits was some local yob from Horning, he and a visiting friend who both thought that bullying children was good ‘sport’, they were egg collectors of course so hated everything the Coot Club stood for.

 

The Coot Club with the Dick’s camera managed to photograph the two yobs in the act with the help of an angler who let them use his cruiser as ‘bait’. This was evidence that nobody could argue with. What I could never understand was how quickly almost everybody in Horning turned against all of them in Coot Club, even Dick and Dot.

 

What seemed even more strange to me to begin with was to hear of Dot taking charge and organising people, when they were with us I just saw her as another of the young ones for me to keep an eye on. This was the first hidden thing about Dot, little did we know back then there would be more.

 

CHAPTER XI

 

WINTER 1932-33

 

_I’d heard stories from a few people around the lakes that Mr Turner, along with the children, had sailed to China, and they had all been captured, but nobody could ever tell me if it was true. One morning I decided to ask Susan about it, to begin with she said very little and continued to talk about other adventures. The next morning when I arrived she just started talking about it with no warning._

 

The following winter Captain Flint, Nancy and Peggy met up with us all again, he hired the same wherry for us to stay in during the holiday after Christmas. I think mother had organised it all with Mrs Blackett. So once again in the long winter evenings we spent time making up an adventure between us just for the fun of it, just as we had the story of Peter Duck and the buried treasure.

 

The story was that we all went on a long voyage to the Far East on the schooner _Wild Cat,_ the same one as we’d used to go to the Caribbean. We’d visited Japan and were on our way to China. Both _Swallow_ and _Amazon_ were on board, and we took Polly and Gibber, the dreaded monkey, even though by that time Roger had given him to the zoo.

 

The story started with the schooner catching fire because that wretched monkey stole Captain Flint’s lighted cigar. As Captain Flint was filling the petrol tank of the engine from a can Gibber ran all over the rigging and waved the cigar around and so the ship caught fire, that part of the story was my idea, I wanted to show my dislike for that horrible monkey, I made him the villain!

 

Once we’d launched _Swallow_ and _Amazon_ we abandoned ship and the schooner blew up and sank, so we all escaped but ended up with us drifting towards some Chinese Islands. We were in _Swallow_ and the Amazons and Captain Flint were in _Amazon_ , and one way and another we made our way to a group of three islands off the China coast and were captured by the female pirate who ruled them – Miss Lee.

 

The original idea for a female ruler of the islands came from John, he had read about an actual woman who ruled some Chinese islands in a newspaper, and it was of course Nancy who made her a pirate. Of course we had heard about the ports of the Far East from father, and Captain Flint I think had been to that part of the world at some point so we all had odd bits of information of what it could be like.

 

Roger’s contribution, with help from Titty, was the oddest and something of a surprise to us. The female pirate had gone to Oxford University but had to return home to rule the islands after her father had died, and because she missed it so much she started daily classes teaching us all Latin, even Captain Flint! What none of us knew was that Roger was very good at Latin at school, he never spoke about it, then none of us talked much about lessons as we were all too interested in sailing and our adventures during the holidays. So in the story Roger made himself the top scholar!

 

We made Miss Lee plan to keep us prisoner long enough to give us all a university education, she would tech all the lessons and continue to rule the islands. Of course we had to escape, but how?

 

Peggy had read somewhere about how the Chinese celebrate their New Year with groups of people dressing up as dragons, one wears a big papier mache head with a long body of canvas that goes over the heads of the others, their legs all make the legs, then there are masses of fireworks, so we worked that in to the story as how we managed to escape, we stole a junk and sailed back to St Maws in Cornwall.

 

Just like the story of Peter Duck I think if it had really happened we would have been frightened, and who would have imprisoned a group of children?   But it was entertaining during those winter evenings, Titty wrote it all down and Nancy did lots of pictures.

 

So that was the story, all that gossip around the lake had been nothing more than a children’s story, told to pass the time on long dark winter evenings with the encouragement of their uncle. The tale was so well known in the area that many of the older people who had heard it when they were children would tell you it was true. I wondered whether I should tell them the next time I was asked about it.

 

CHAPTER XII

 

SUMMER 1933

 

It was all arranged that we were going to Beckfoot the next summer with the Ds, but for some reason we’d be there a week or so later than them in the holidays, I suppose father was home so before we arrived Dick and Dot were there to stay with Nancy and Peggy. Captain Flint had taken Mrs Blackett away on holiday, a cruise to Scandinavia as she’d been unwell, and they left Nancy in charge at Beckfoot, welcoming guests and giving daily orders to Cook and the other staff.

 

The plan was that Dick and Dot were about to get their own boat at last, it was being built at the boatyard that repaired _Swallow_ in Rio, an arrangement made by Professor Callum with Captain Flint, it was to be named _Scarab_. Dick was also needed to be there to help Timothy with analysis of some of the rocks from our mine. But despite Nancy’s well thought our plans things went terribly wrong from the first day.

 

The four of them, six if you include Timothy and Cook, told us all about it when we arrived but by then Beckfoot was back to normal.

 

Nancy and Peggy had prepared Dick and Dot’s rooms in Beckfoot with paintings of skull and crossbones and scarabs, and they arrived looking forward to getting their own boat and practising their sailing skills before we arrived. They had not been there long on the day of their arrival when Nancy received a letter from the odious GA, Great Aunt Maria had heard that Mrs Blackett had gone away leaving Nancy and Peggy alone in Beckfoot, she was appalled that their was nobody there to look after them, for her of course the Cook, a mere servant, did not count, and so she would be arriving later that day to ‘care’ for them.

 

Last time she had visited was when we camped in Swallowdale, we didn’t know Dick and Dot then, and Dot told us that she couldn’t understand why the visit of a relative would cause such problems. She had no idea what the GA was like, and thought what Nancy had to say about her was just an exaggeration!

 

Once Nancy had made them understand why they couldn’t stay at Beckfoot under any circumstances the problem was where were they to go? Nancy was suddenly inspired; in the woods near Beckfoot there was an old stone hut, used by gamekeepers, shepherds and such like known to them as the ‘Dogs Home’. Dick and Dot could camp there, so with an hour or two of their arrival they found themselves cleaning out a stone building, putting up hammocks, and Dot had to lay a fire and be ready to look after them both.

 

The GA duly arrived causing her usual havoc, but somehow with the help of various people and Nancy’s pleading with them to keep quiet she knew nothing of Dick and Dot. To us, when we heard all about it, the amusing thing was that she was aware something was going on involving other children but thought it was all of us!

 

At the same time Timothy had been given permission to make free use of Captain Flint’s study whenever he wanted to carry out his analysis of the rock samples. With the GA in residence this was out of the question, she had seen him hanging around Beckfoot and viewed him as an untrustworthy stranger, so Nancy got him to stay in the houseboat. But to do his work he needed scientific equipment from Captain Flint’s study, the only way to get it was for Dick, with help from Nancy, to break in to the study one night and take away what was needed in a suitcase. We heard the whole story and how the GA nearly caught him, the police were called and more trouble for the Amazons ensued. The GA had seen Timothy loitering around Beckfoot and told the police about this suspicious man, and they should question him about the sudden disappearance of things from her nephew’s study.

 

So Timothy took over Captain Flint’s houseboat to do his work in, Dick helped and Dot cleaned up his mess and cooked for him as he got so involved he would forget to do so, Dot was used to this with Dick. Somehow the GA got wind of something going on at the houseboat, and on her penultimate day of her visit persuaded someone to take her there by rowing boat. She was convinced that it was trespassers and on discovering Timothy’s rock samples she threw them overboard in to the lake. She had not told anyone where she was going, and so everyone was searching for her, all unbeknown to Dick and Dot who were out sailing in _Scarab_. They made there way to the houseboat to meet once again with Timothy and found the GA instead. In their new boat, at her request, they took her back to Beckfoot, the GA having no idea who they were, she was still certain it was us who were around somewhere messing up Nancy and Peggy’s lives! After she left that same day she wrote to Mrs Blackett suggesting Nancy and Peggy should have friends like the girl and boy who rescued her rather than those other awful children they spent time with, that was us, the cheek of the woman!

 

CHAPTER XIII

 

SUMMER 1933

 

We heard all about Tom and the other Coots from Dick and Dot, but none of us had met any of them. As well as Tom and the twins, whose father was a solicitor, the other members of Coot Club were three boys, Bill, Joe and Pete, and all their fathers worked for boatyards in Horning. That summer Dick and Dot and their parents, who were going to learn to sail, were staying at the lake with Nancy and Peggy, by a strange sequence of events the Death and Glories, as Bill, Joe and Pete called themselves, ended up at the lake.

 

The whole story was told to us by Nancy later that year, someone at the lake, unusually, had paid for a cabin cruiser to be built, why anyone would want such a vessel none of us understood, but they did. Turned out they had ordered it from the boatyard in Horning that Pete’s dad worked for. The D & Gs had seen the cruiser loaded on a lorry ready to be brought to the lake overnight, Pete’s dad was to travel on the lorry to show the new owner how to use the craft. The boys knew that Dick and Dot were at the lake, so they stowed away on the cruiser, I can’t imagine what their mothers thought when they found out, we knew how it was after going across the North Sea.

 

On reaching the lake they were, of course, discovered but only after the lorry, and Pete’s dad, had begun its journey back to Norfolk. Fortunately, the three boys made friends with the new owner of the cabin cruiser when they arrived. So the three of them were at the lake Dick and Dot often spoke of. Sympathetic to their plight the owner of the cabin cruiser took them on the vessel’s maiden voyage on the lake, at the same time that day Nancy, Peggy, Dick and Dot were sailing their boats. Somehow, Nancy and Peggy overturned _Amazon_ and as they struggled to right her they were spotted by the D  & Gs.

 

The three boys when back in Horning were used to doing salvage work and quickly got afloat using the cruiser’s dinghy, thinking Nancy and Peggy were in trouble and needed help, this of course was their first mistake.

 

In attempting to ‘save’ Nancy from ‘drowning’ Pete grabbed her by the hair, she lashed out and he suffered a blow to the nose for his trouble. Later on when all was explained Nancy was insistent that that the three of them should stay longer, but their fathers had sent money for their return train tickets with a warning that trouble awaited them in Horning.

 

Before the three of them left they were once again on the lake in the cabin cruiser with Nancy, Peggy, Dick and Dot. Thanks to a strong wind Captain Flint’s houseboat broke its moorings and began to drift towards some rocks, and once again the D & Gs moved in to action and with help of everyone the houseboat was saved from damage. When Captain Flint and Timothy returned from the mine his gratitude was to pay the fare for the D & Gs to go home to Horning, and a salvage fee for each of them of ten shillings each.

 

Captain Flint was a generous man, always ready to help with money or support; the kind of uncle everyone should have.

 

 

CHAPTER XIV

 

SUMMER 1934

 

Our final adventure together, though at the time we didn’t know it, was in Scotland all thanks to a friend of Captain Flint’s. But for all of us older ones we remembered most of all as it was when Titty and Dick fell in love, the only thing was that neither of them knew and it took them thirty years to realise it!

 

Captain Flint had borrowed a sea going yacht, the _Sea Bear_ , from an old friend, Mac, and we had sailed around the western Scottish coast, mainly bird watching. We were nearing the end of the trip and Captain Flint had agreed with Mac to raise the _Sea Bear_ out of the water and thoroughly clean the hull. We knew this would be hard work, and it was agreed that only us older ones would do the work, allowing the youngsters to do more bird watching.

 

During one trip on the mainland Dick saw what he thought was a pair of birds that he knew to be rare in Britain, the Great Northern Diver and they were nesting. It tuned out that a luxury yacht moored quite near to us belonged to a bird expert, a Mr Jemmerling, a strange individual, wealthy with far too much time on his hands.

 

Dick was so convinced of what he had seen he rowed over to the yacht and asked to speak to him, but when he returned he was pleased that he was right about their identity, but appalled that Jemmerling was an egg collector and demanded to know where he had seen it and even offered him money. The trouble was when Dick refused to tell him he got angry and threatened him.

 

From then on Jemmerling and the crew of his yacht watched us all the time, when we went out to sea one day they followed us, assuming we were leaving.

 

While us older ones got on with cleaning the boat Dick and the others got involved on the mainland with the locals who thought they were disturbing the deer, and they had witnessed Jemmerling stealing the eggs of the Diver.

 

It ended almost chaotically, Captain Flint was taken prisoner by the local laird but finally Dick and Titty took the eggs back to the nest and the Divers returned. It was during that act the two of them became very emotional, they didn’t say much on their return but it was clear to most of us that a spark was ignited between them, one they didn’t realise, or didn’t manage to act upon until the nineteen sixties.

 

CHAPTER XV

 

1939-1945

 

Then there was the war, which we could all see coming, John and Roger joined the navy but then they were going to anyway. I decided to join up, I wanted to do something useful, I’d had enough of looking after the younger ones and being just a younger version of mother, I wanted to do something where I was controlling and directing people.

 

I was surprised that I actually did well, rising through the ranks and then in various desk jobs, I never actually went to sea of course, it didn’t happen then, I ended up in London making a contribution to the war at a far higher level than John ever did. I know over the years I’ve kept saying this to people, but John was always so cocky about his time in the navy and I just had to listen and could never say anything about what I did. They didn’t even realise I sometimes had to lie to them about where I was working or living. The only person who really knew what it was like was Dick, but then he only found out in the nineteen-sixties.

 

What Dick got up to was something of a mystery to us all when the war started, he was at university and we all thought he’d volunteer for the forces but he didn’t. What was strange was that Dorothea didn’t know either, they were so close so she usually knew all about his life, and Titty who wrote to us all and kept everyone up to date never seemed to have any idea what he did.

 

The war was tragic for us Swallows, father was killed early on; his ship was sunk by a U-boat in the north Atlantic. Mother was of course devastated, well, we all were, it just seemed so unfair. I hadn’t seen him for months so never got the chance to say goodbye and he never knew that of his children I was the most successful in my career.

 

Each in our own way dealt with father’s death and carried on with surviving the war, then we got news of Roger. Poor Roger. His ship had been captured by the Japanese somewhere in the Far East, he was taken prisoner and spent the rest of the war in one of the awful camps, and he was returned home in 1946, a broken man, physically and mentally. I tried to find out if anyone knew what happened to him, there was so little information available, we knew he had been ill, as if the conditions in the camp weren’t bad enough, and it was obvious that he had been tortured, but why? On his return he was psychologically destroyed, he could barely speak, and spend most of days in silence. Mother looked after him and Titty and I did what we could, then I took over when I retired. Why he was tortured we never knew, there was nothing he could have known, he was just an ordinary naval rating, I’ve often wondered whether the Japanese knew something about Dick’s work and the fact that he and Roger knew each other. I don’t know, over the years I’ve thought about it too much and that’s the only conclusion I’ve ever arrived at.

 

During the war Dick’s name came up in a meeting I attended, I was part of a group of officers from all three services being briefed about information that was being gleaned at Bletchley Park, though most of us had little idea about what was going on there. Towards the end of the meeting we were all shown lists of people who worked there, I didn’t realise when they were given to us that they wanted to know if we knew any of them, and if we did we would be questioned about it afterwards. So on the list there was a ‘Callum, Richard’, for a moment I passed it by then suddenly realised that this would be Dick Callum. So I admitted I knew someone on the list, nothing was said other than I was told to say no more and stay behind when the meeting was over. I was the only one who said anything.

 

The meeting finished and I was questioned in depth on who it was I knew and how much I knew him about him, they just let me talk not asking any direct questions. They seemed to conclude from what I said that I did know him and I was told not to reveal to anyone that I knew where he was, and then reminded me, as if I needed to be, that I had signed the Official Secrets Act.

 

In the nineteen-sixties when there was all that trouble about Nancy’s activities after the war Dick and I had the chance to talk alone, I was still serving then but I decided to tell Dick what I knew. To be honest I was curious, I hoped that he would tell me something. We had all discussed what he did whenever some of us got together; it was so unlike him to not say anything, others had tried, even asking him directly. So I told him the story of the meeting and he waited for his reaction, he told me everything. But of course I couldn’t tell any of the others and he couldn’t either.

 

CHAPTER XVI

 

SUMMER 2005

 

I didn’t get up this morning, I felt very tired and soon drifted back to sleep, I woke occasionally and could see the lake through the window, the sun sparkling on the water.

 

I think Jane came in, she brought the last of the typed pages and put them on the table by the window which I’ll put in to the folder later. She spoke to me, I think, but I can’t remember what she said. She sat in the chair by the bed and I think I fell asleep again.

 

Now Roger is calling me, what has he done now! Always something to be dealt with. Now I can hear the others, all of them, they’re calling my name, they’re all so far away, but I’ll reach them, I will, I know I will, in just a few minutes I will be with them.

 

CHAPTER XVII

 

SUMMER 2005

_Susan died that last morning when I went to see her, I had taken the final pages of everything she had told me. When I went to her she was asleep so I left the pages on the table and sat in the chair. As I was sitting by the bed, watching the lake out of the window I realised in the quiet, the only breathing to be heard was my own, I reached across and felt for her pulse, there was none._

_After her funeral she was buried with the others in the same churchyard, they are all together again; new journeys and adventures await them for eternity._


End file.
